


All cats are grey

by lamphouse



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Art References, Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Footnotes, Getting Together, Good Omens Holiday Exchange 2018, Historical, M/M, Middle Ages, Modern Era, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Renaissance Era, Sleeping Together, Slow Burn, Victorian, takes place everywhere and everywhen but particularly:
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-08
Updated: 2019-01-08
Packaged: 2019-10-01 14:00:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17245523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lamphouse/pseuds/lamphouse
Summary: "Slow burn? You want slow burn? How about SIX THOUSAND YEARS of slow burn?"— the GO Exchange modsDemonsdohave to be able to see in the dark, though after a while they tend to forget that not everyone can. Or, grey areas and moments of clarity.





	All cats are grey

**Author's Note:**

> [originally posted in the 2018 Good Omens Holiday Exchange](https://go-exchange.dreamwidth.org/222606.html)
> 
>  
> 
> For Wolfsminze, and the prompt:
>
>> A/C. _Demons have to be able to see in the dark. And he could see that his hand was yellow._ But what else do demons see in the dark? How does Crowley's night vision differ from his normal vision - and how does he like to use it (especially when a certain angel is around)?

A majority of the time, Crowley forgets about most of his demonic powers—or, at the very least, that they are "powers" as opposed to skills anyone could have.

Even spending all his time around humans, it often slips his mind that most people have to plug in their appliances to get them to work, or that their electric bills (which Crowley dutifully opens each month before it throwing away) are higher on average because they need lights to see. He does plenty of "human" things, just not _humanly_. He drives his car but never fills it up because it never occurs to him he ought to, he nicks matchbooks from restaurants but never uses them because snapping his fingers works just as well, he "just gets" musical instruments but not the way humans do because they don't have an innate and supernatural reason for it.1 Especially given that the only being he spends any substantial amount of time one-on-one with is Aziraphale, most shortcuts go unnoticed.2

Every so often, though, he can't help but become aware of the specifics of his occult biology. Like that time in, what was it?

* * *

1 Given the frequency with which soul-winning contests involve some sort of instrument, it's a bit of a job requirement. For a demon, Crowley was average at the standard lute, mandolin, and fiddle, which was the equivalent of a human who has done nothing but practice for twenty straight years. It wasn't until the electric guitar started getting popular that he really came into his own, though that was mostly due to how easily seduced rock stars are.

2 Unless one is looking for an opportunity to give the other a hard time.

* * *

**Iceland, circa 1240**

Iceland, for all that its name is ironic by comparison, is still bloody freezing. It starts before one even gets there; it's hours on freezing boats, then the back of freezing carts, then trudging through freezing darkness even though it's barely afternoon, before Crowley can break into Aziraphale's freezing hut and pass out in his freezing bed.

There's no sign of the angel, and thank Someone, because if Crowley had to open his mouth to talk to someone right now, he's almost certain the last bit of warmth would escape out of him and he'd be a man-shaped icicle. It's too cold to sleep properly, but he's got every blanket and tapestry in sight on top of him, so it's close enough that he drifts off in fits and starts.

"Hw— _shit_." Crowley's eyes snap open, and he immediately recognizes the weight on his chest and, by extension, the blade pressed to his throat.

"Stay still, demon, or I will strike you where you stand. Er... lay."

"Oh, don't start. You couldn't just let me sleep?"

Aziraphale jolts, kneeing Crowley in the ribs, and topples backwards onto Crowley's blanket-covered legs. In the dark, Crowley's world is monochrome, but he can still recognize most colors by their specific shades of grey, and he knows the muddled grey of Aziraphale's robes is the same blue as the man who'd driven the cart here and knows the ink on his hands is quickly drying into black-brown smears all over the blankets. It's all very _Aziraphale_ of him, familiarly stuffy, but it _is_ odd to know that although Crowley is looking at him, right now, he still hasn't really _seen_ Aziraphale in decades.

"Crowley?! Oh hell..."

As he pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs, Crowley sits up.

"Do you always charge in the door threatening whoever's in your bed?" He asks, pulling the blankets back around his curled up body before he starts to shake again. "Bad manners, angel."

When Aziraphale shakes his head and gives him a look, out of focus.

" _No_ , but I do have to combat unknown forces of evil waiting for me in my home."

"What, you don't recognize my aura by now?" Crowley smirks. "I thought we were friends."

Aziraphale rolls his eyes, openly disdainful in a way he never is.

"What are you doing in my bed?" He asks evenly, still not looking at Crowley but a few feet behind him. Right, because he can't see Crowley. Interesting...

"S'cold."

Shedding blankets as quietly as he can, Crowley keeps an eye on the angel, but he doesn't seem to notice a thing.

"I'm meant to supervise the nearing political upheaval-slash-murder," he continues. Aziraphale frowns but notices nothing. "I didn't know it would take so long to get here."

By now, Crowley has one shoulder free, and reaches out one still-freezing hand.

"So like every good traveler, I followed the angelic aura, looking for..."

Almost there...

"...shelter."

"Ah!"

Aziraphale jumps when Crowley touches his cheek, toppling off the bed, much to Crowley's delight.

When his angry face pops up over the side of the bed again, Crowley rolls his eyes.

"Oh come on. Don't kick me out." Usually he would pull out his _pity me, please_ expression, but with the darkness and everything, he settles for whining. "What happened to refuge, and all that? Hide me in your shelter, under your cover, all that, right?"

Crowley wriggles further under the blankets. Aziraphale shakes his head at the ceiling.

"So I suppose stranding you on a rock would be just as acceptable?" He asks, but he leaves Crowley be, parking himself at his desk with a tall candle that makes the room look warmer, if not feel it.

* * *

**The south tower of the Cologne Cathedral, Cologne, Germany, 1475**

"On your left," Crowley says as he squeezes through the cracked door, just to watch Aziraphale to jump almost literally out of his skin.3

"You have to stop doing that," Aziraphale reprimands even as follows him to the staircase. "One of these days you'll give me a heart attack, and you know how troublesome it is, getting a new corporation."

Ignoring this, Crowley snaps, holding the flame balanced on his thumb aloft to illuminate a few stairs at a time so Aziraphale doesn't trip and die.

After a few more dizzying flights, he asks, "So breaking and entering is a virtue now, is it?"

"It's just entering," Aziraphale says, opening the door to the belfry. "It's a shame it won't be finished, but I don't see why that means no one should take advantage of what they did build."

"Right, sure."

Below them, the city is half-illuminated, moving with the torches affixed to walls and held by riders on horseback. It's bright, but it's distant from the belfry, which is dark and full of abandoned building materials, the torches workers had left behind long since pilfered.

Aziraphale is sketching, something he rarely does, mostly because he's not that great at it.4 Crowley is dropping bricks out the window in hopes of spooking some passing horse, just for something to watch other than Aziraphale's frown of concentration and awkward juggling of charcoal, paper, and wax eraser whenever he makes a particularly egregious mistake (which is often).

They stand at the window like that for hours, the night growing darker around them.

Crowley is about to suggest they try climbing onto the roof when he hears something thud on the floor and Aziraphale say under his breath, "Oh dear."

"What have you done now?" Crowley unfolds himself from his deliberately casual lean on the windowsill.

"My wax." Aziraphale frowns in the general direction of the floor. "I've lost it."

He starts gingerly moving his foot around in hopes of coming across the little ball, which Crowley spots a few inches from his other foot. It's endearingly comical, and Crowley considers letting him fumble around the belfry for the rest of the night, but stoops to pick up the little ball anyway.

"Do try to hold on to your belongings," he says, passing it over before he hops up to sit on the windowsill, no longer pretending to be watching anything other than Aziraphale. "Greed may be a sin, but you're too prone to losing things to afford not getting attached."

"I'm certainly not going to take advice on avoiding sin from you," the angel sniffs before returning to his sketch, but there's no vitriol behind it, and he sets his things down on the sill next to Crowley regardless.

* * *

3 He does not disappoint.

4 Despite having seen them since the literal dawn of their creation, human anatomy and proportions continue to elude him.

* * *

**Outside Padua, Italy, 1548**

When he was leaning over Institoris's shoulder adding color commentary to that stupid demonology treatise, Crowley somehow hadn't foreseen it being used against him. That, in and of itself, was a regrettable and obvious blind spot. Worse was the fact that he was now bricked up in the cellar of some lunatic Italians.

"I hate Italy," he says, letting his head thunk against the brick after a few hours of trying to escape.

"Don't say that." Aziraphale shuffles further down the wall, tapping at bricks as he goes. "What would Leonardo think?"

In the silence, Crowley winces, and Aziraphale mirrors him without knowing.

"Ah. Too soon?"

Crowley waves it off, then, realizing his mistake, says, "Never mind. Why haven't you already miracled us out of here?"

"There were wards on the outside," Aziraphale says, continuing his tapping. "In bronze, even."

Dammit. Unfortunately, it's starting to come back, in bits and pieces as shouty and bigoted as they are embarrassing. It was one thing to be foolish enough to get accused of witchcraft because some morons caught Aziraphale carrying him around him in serpent form; being accidentally outsmarted by them was just adding insult to injury.5

"For bumbling racists, they were well prepared." Crowley bangs his head once more before slumping to the floor. He stares the opposite wall for a while, listening to Aziraphale continuing to look for a weak spot in the wall, but the strain of staring in the dark starts to hurt even him before long. Even his hearing is suffering, though he unfortunately can still hear the men upstairs ranting about Lombards and familiar spirits and other nonsense.

There's nothing else in the cellar. A few casks,6 the rope that Aziraphale's hands had been tied with, the bag Crowley had been tossed in in, spare bricks and a pile of broken glass winking in the corner. No kinds of tools or anything, unfortunately, but...

"Hang on."

Aziraphale is still trying to wedge the stylus he'd found in one of his pockets between two bricks and does not look until Crowley starts crawling across the floor toward the glass.

"If you cut yourself..."

"Hush." The glass, up close, is green, and it takes a moment for Crowley to realize he knows that not because he's used to translating that shade of grey but because he genuinely sees it. "Yes. _Yes_."

"What is it?"

"Give me that."

Crowley makes a grabbing motion for several moments for Aziraphale seems to figure it out. When he gets his hands on the stylus, he immediately starts digging at the wall next to the glass, and soon enough it starts to crumble away, revealing a thin stream of orange light.

Aziraphale is shaking his head, and Crowley knows what he's about to say before he says it, but not soon enough to stop him. "Ineffable."

Hand stuck through the wall, Crowley rolls his eyes. "Oh, don't start."

Once they break the seal, it's easy enough to silently miracle away the rest of the wall. On their way up the stairs, Aziraphale says, "I feel like I shouldn't be against demon hunters, but they were going to torture us, so they most likely deserve it," and to that, Crowley has no response.

* * *

5 Being carried around in a sack being both insult and injury—even back in his corporation, Crowley could feel the bruises forming.

6 Empty. He checked, as soon as he had hands again—not that getting drunk would be a good idea in this situation.

* * *

**Somewhere between London and Manchester, 1873**

Crowley has been conscious in the nineteenth century for all of four days and every one of them has been filled with Aziraphale's excited chattering about everything he'd missed during his nap. It's gotten so bad that they're now on the train (because trains are boring things everyone uses now, and Crowley can feel that dormant urge to Meddle stirring at the thought of all the _schedules_ he could mess with) to get hands-on experience with some of it, or something like that.7

"It really is—" Aziraphale sets down his tea and shakes his head wondrously. "I mean, the scientific applications alone, never mind the social implications of connecting humans, perhaps, even across oceans—"

"And _that's_ why we're going to Manchester?" Crowley butts in.

Aziraphale turns to the window just as they enter a tunnel, depriving him of something to pretend to look interested in. "Er. Well. No."

He'd been acting cagey all morning—ever since he had suggested the tip the afternoon before—and it was starting to grate on Crowley.

"I just thought it was interesting," Aziraphale finishes lamely.

"Really, angel, just tell me." A beat, then Crowley squints. "Is it a book thing? Are you dragging me along on one of your book things? What, you don't trust me not to raze London in your absence?"

"No! Of course I—"

Aziraphale cuts himself off half a second before the train shudders to a stop and the lights go out.

"Oh dear." He looks surprised, then dejected, his expressions unschooled in the dark. "Oh _no_."

Crowley is already on his feet, poking his head out into the corridor. Not a soul in sight. Bless it.

"Just had to wait for us to be a tunnel, didn't you?" He mutters at the ceiling as he sits back down, ignoring the disapproving look Aziraphale gives him. "I can't believe I got out of bed for this." He pauses before glaring at Aziraphale. "I can't believe you _made me_ get out of bed for this."

"I know you're fully aware that I didn't mean for us to get stranded in the middle of a tunnel before we even reached our destination, but in case you haven't realized it yet, no, this was _not_ was I intended for our afternoon." Aziraphale shuts his eyes, for all the difference it makes, and continues with a pained face, "We were meant to visit the new Botanic Gardens."

"...Why?"

"Because you like plants," he says, quieter.8

Whatever Crowley had been thinking of saying collapses into a pinpoint of light before winking totally out of existence.

"I..." Crowley swallows unnecessarily. "I suppose I do."

"They have all sorts of things," Aziraphale says weakly. "Trees and ponds, big glass domes. Every kind of rose under the sun. It's supposed to be lovely."

Crowley keeps waiting for the train to lurch back into motion, but the universe has briefly abandoned him to his own floundering devices. "It sounds it."

Silence reigns for a moment, stifled by the close walls of the compartment and the tunnel outside. The longer it goes on, the more uncomfortable Crowley feels about the fact that he can see Aziraphale but is himself unseen. Aziraphale's eyes are unfocused in the direction of the windowsill, but Crowley can see every thread in the tweed of his jacket, every curl in his hair, every smudge on his glasses.

He's so busy being overwhelmed by the amount of detail that he doesn't notice he's leaning over to fix Aziraphale's jacket before he's already done it and Aziraphale has looked up, startled.

"What—?"

Crowley coughs. "Your collar. It was crooked."

"Oh. Right."

For the first time ever, Crowley wishes darkness were ever just darkness for him, so he wouldn't have to see Aziraphale's frustratingly gentle expression. Then he tries to imagine the same scene with his eyes closed, the rising temperature of the circulating air in the compartment, the heightened awareness of the lack of space, in the room, between their bodies.

"I'll, ah," Crowley stands and starts backing toward the door. "I'll just go see if anyone knows what's going on, and if I can..." He waves a hand ineffectually, and Aziraphale nods, despite not seeing the gesture. "Yeah."

When the door slides shut behind him, Crowley tries not to wince at the colder air. He stays in the corridor until the train starts up again.

* * *

7 At a certain point, Crowley tuned out. If he had listened for a moment longer he may have realized that all the names Aziraphale had been dropping were only ones he'd heard in the paper and not friends he had made in Crowley's absence. If he had listened a little bit further than that, he may have even figured out that none of these were subjects the angel cared about, and in fact tailored exactly to _Crowley_ 's interests. But he didn't, and so missed all this.

8 Which is to say, at normal conversational level. At some point in the conversation, they (meaning Crowley) had risen to the level of not yelling, per se, but the polite equivalent thereof.

* * *

**Brighton, 1964**

It had started out as a business trip.9 Crowley had got an assignment, some American advertising or salesman or something like that on vacation, needing a push into a minor bout of fraud that would fester into a tumultuous corporate takeover in a few months. He'd mentioned it to Aziraphale. Aziraphale had remarked that he had been thinking about also visiting Brighton for some reason. They had both been too polite to _not_ split the difference and combine the two into a proper working vacation.

"It's not so bad."

Aziraphale scratches in another answer in the dinky crossword in the back of a TV Guide Crowley's ad man had dropped while they were stalking him.

"The simplicity of it is mitigated by the fact that I've no idea what any of these clues refer to." He glances across the table. "You're shedding all over the carpet, dear."

Crowley glares at him before turning back to the window, still rubbing gingerly at his sunburnt arm. "Bite me, dear."

Someone else would be vacuuming the carpet come tomorrow, and even if Crowley had the ability to focus on anything other than whipping up clouds, he wouldn't really care, but as is he has to focus and doesn't quite have time to spend quibbling with Aziraphale over manners and the butterfly effect and Someone knows what else.

Outside, the sky is darkening, the waves throwing themselves on the beach. In about a minute, the ad man will be in view. Crowley can already picture it—jacket over his shoulder, sopping wet from having tripped off the pier, and there he is. And there's the thunder. A job well done, and he can relax.

This is when the lights flicker, one, twice, then out. Oops.

"For heaven's sake." Aziraphale sighs and tosses the paper onto the table. "I was just getting onto it, as well."

"Into," Crowley corrects absentmindedly, his eyes flicking back to the beach. He can feel the frustration of the other guests in the hotel, which is a bonus, but it's occurred to him that he may have gone a bit too far. The ad man is fine, though—he's lost his grip on his jacket, which is now blowing around his head, but he's not been struck dead or anything.

Lightning strikes again, and the split second that Crowley sees him out of the corner of his eye in full color is burned into his retinas. In the greyscale of his low light vision, all nuance is lost, so to have it all returned in high-definition, the rumpled collar of his seersucker shirt, the odd angles of his hair where the salty air has dried, the little colorful beads on his glasses chain—it's all a bit too much for Crowley to process that quickly. The ad man is forgotten.

Aziraphale shuts his eyes and leans back in his chair, then opens them again to stare at the dark ceiling. "I don't see how you... well, how you _see_. With the sunglasses, and the darkness, and all of that. It really is quite remarkable."

Crowley is about to shoot back some smart remark about how if it hadn't been for his shades, his eyes themselves would have gotten sunburnt as well, but shuts his mouth at the last sentence. "Ah. Well, er... I don't know either. I suppose being a demon had to have some perks, or else no one would switch sides, right?"

He knows as soon as the words leave his mouth that they're wrong; the wicker of Aziraphale's chair creaks under the rumbling clouds as he shifts uncomfortably. Things had been awkward all week, Aziraphale's usual discomfort with watching Crowley do actual demonic work a constant presence despite the brief respites of genuine comradery.

After a pause that Aziraphale doesn't notice, Crowley sighs. "Give me that."

"Mm, what?"

He snatches the crossword and skims the messy few answers Aziraphale had gotten. "You've never heard of _Bewitched_?"

Aziraphale sniffs. "I'm familiar with the concept."

"It's a television show."

"Yes. I knew that."

Because the power is still out, Crowley smiles. He's so busy with that, though, he misses Aziraphale doing the same.

"Twenty-seven down, blank _Station Zebra_ , soon to be a major motion picture."

"Oh I _do_ know that one!"

Aziraphale lurches forward to lean blindly across the table, waving one hand and grinning like a fool. "It's a novel, people kept visiting the shop looking for it. Alistair MacLean. _Ice_ ," he finishes with the utmost confidence.

The thunder covers the sound of Crowley already filling it in, as well as his accompanying soft chuckle.

* * *

9 This is not intentionally a metaphor but can be read as such so easily that one suspects maybe it _was_  after all.

* * *

**Soho, 1978**

Brandy. There has to be brandy in here somewhere, right? Crowley rummages through Aziraphale's kitchen with hands shaking and one goal in mind. By the time he finds it, the angel himself has appeared, bleary, in the doorway. Good. Company.

"Dear boy, _what_ are you doing?" Aziraphale flicks the light on, then off again when Crowley flinches. "What is it?"

"What does it look like?" He presses a mug into Aziraphale's hands, curling his fingers around the vessel for him. "Drinking."

"Why?"

Crowley starts pouring. "End times."

Aziraphale frowns as alcohol splashes all over his hands. "Really, dear, watch the— Alright then."

After Crowley takes a long drink from his own mug (which should be empty by the end of it, but nevertheless stays nearly full), Aziraphale asks, "What was that about end times?"

Another drink, then: "You really ought to pick up your phone, you know." Another drink. "Especially if someone calls eight times in one hour."

"What's wrong then?"

It's the wrong question, and requires far too much exposition. Crowley nearly tells him this, but instead drinks the rest of his brandy, sobers up, and takes both mugs over to the sink.

"Nothing," he says over the sound of running water. "Well, something. But I'll tell you in the morning."

Before Aziraphale can answer,10 Crowley is passed out on the sofa in the other room.

* * *

10 Read: interrogate him further.

* * *

**Mayfair, 1989**

The jeep doesn't stop until they reach Crowley's flat, at which point Crowley wordless parks around the corner, far from his usual spot, and they both head inside.

Their streak of silence continues up into the flat, where Crowley immediately flops onto his bed (not noticing the sudden increase in the usual pile of white goose down pillows) and Aziraphale meanders around aimlessly.

Crowley listens to his muffled footsteps, across the kitchen, the living room, up to the front door, a pause, and back over to the bedroom. The door opens noiselessly, and Crowley turns his head to see Aziraphale, metaphorically silhouetted in the doorway, in the dark.

For a while, no one says anything.

"You know I can see you."

It's hard to tell, but Crowley is pretty sure he can feel the slight change in the air temperature as Aziraphale blushes.

"Well, yes," Aziraphale rocks back on his heels, lightly bedraggled, hands in his pocket. "I was just checking to see if... I'll leave you then."

"Alright, come on."

Vanishing a few of the pillows in his nest, Crowley pats the sudden empty space next to him. Aziraphale looks alarmed at first, then smothers it, stuttering a bit more before climbing onto the bed.

Flat on his back, stiff as a board, he starts to visibly sink into the mattress, and as funny as the sight is, Crowley knows if he lets it go on any longer Aziraphale will start making excuses again and clamber off and Crowley just wants to _sleep_ , so he waves his hand.

"H— Oh." Aziraphale looks down at his new pajamas.

"Don't worry," Crowley neatly intercepts his train of thought. "Your clothes are in the wardrobe."

"Thank you, I suppose." Aziraphale turns on his side, the buttons on his new shirt flashing in the last little bit of light that's snuck through the blinds. "I mean, the sleep of reason produces monsters and all that, but I don't suppose a few hours would hurt..."

Crowley blinks more and more slowly. "I think it's safe to say the world won't end tonight."

"Well..." Aziraphale stops. Crowley doesn't have to be looking at him to know he's making his thoughtful consideration face. "Yes."

He sounds surprised. Crowley knows the feeling, but also that if he lets the thought evolve, they'll be talking for hours more.

"Sleep, angel." It starts as a hiss and ends as a mumble. Crowley's hand comes up to latch onto Aziraphale's wrist lying between them.

* * *

**South Downs, 2001**

Recently, Crowley has taken to standing in the middle of the back garden at night. He doesn't do anything but look. Sussex is incredibly quiet at night. Sometimes he thinks he can hear the sleeping birds breathing. In the dark, everything is grey, but that just makes it easier to focus on what's beyond—a rabbit's ear twitching against tall grass, a house-cat lunging after something, a bird shifting deeper into its nest, a cricket, grass and leaves moving in the breeze, and, if he strains a little further, a few insomniac whales.

"Everything alright?"

"Mhm."

The feel of flannel under his hands, warm from Aziraphale's body, is deeply familiar, as are the steps that always follow: the drift and breeze of sheets falling back over their legs, the click and hum of the heat coming on to counter the early fall air, the way Aziraphale flinches only a little from Crowley's cold feet.

A car drives slowly through backroads, and a family of badgers, no harm in their hearts, shuffle to make room for a passing fox to join them.

Aziraphale yawns, covering his mouth with one hand as the other continues smoothing down Crowley's hair. "World still intact?"

"All creatures great and small," Crowley mumbles, and he shuts his eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> that's right, I did it! I finally did the exchange! this was such a lovely experience, and I guess I'd liked to just give another quick lil thank you to _my_ secret author spickerzocker (first timers high five!), and to all the mods and everyone who made all these wonderful gifts and just. this was so fun! love you guys
> 
> tumblr @[lamphous](http://lamphous.tumblr.com)


End file.
